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How Quantum Computers Break Encryption | Shor's Algorithm Explained

minutephysics · 3.4M views · 2019-05-01 · 17:31

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Overview

MinutePhysics explains Shor's algorithm, showing how a quantum computer factors large integers by finding the period of a number modulo N. It walks through the modular arithmetic and number theory that give the exponential speedup over classical factoring, and why this threatens encryption.

On Hacker News

HN commenters point to it as a clear, approachable explanation of Shor's algorithm and what quantum computers actually do.

Recommended by 3 HN people across 3 months · HN mentions 2019–2023

Topics

Quantum computingCryptography
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shor's algorithmquantum factoringmodular arithmetic

What people said

diginova · 2023-04 · Recommendation

This video clears a most important misconception everyone has regarding QC which is "How a QC does operation's parallelly and what does that even mean when you can only get 1 output irl?" I hope I myself have understood it correctly if that's right Also Minute Physics video for the Shor's Algorithm is good explaination [VIDEO]

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xmprt · 2021-06 · Recommendation

This helped me a lot and I think it made the rounds on hackernews a while back as well. [LINK] There's also this video which walks through how quantum computers solve a very specific factoring problem (Shor's Algorithm) in a way that classical computers cannot. [VIDEO]

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glandium · 2019-10 · Recommendation

Minute Physics has a really good explanation of Shor's algorithm, and by proxy, Quantum computing. [VIDEO] And the followup: [LINK]

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Sources

Video by minutephysics, played through YouTube.

Data and selection notes

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